Algerian quake toll passes 1,000

Updated
Fri 23 May 2003, 7:27 AM AEST

Photo

Rescue workers sift through the debris of a large apartment building in the Algerian town of Boumerdes.

Reuters

Rescue workers have continued to tear at piles of rubble, hoping to find survivors of an earthquake in the Algerian capital and nearby towns that killed more than 1,000 people and injured nearly 7,000.

Measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale, the quake sent terrified residents running into the streets yesterday morning (AEST) in Algiers and towns to the east along a populous Mediterranean coastal strip.

Some 24 hours after the quake struck, Algerian state radio quoted Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni as saying the death toll now stood at 1,092 and 6,782 people had been injured. Rescuers said hundreds were still missing.

Mr Zerhouni said it was still a preliminary figure. The fate of some people buried under shattered buildings is still not known.

The tremor, felt as far away as Spain, was Algeria's worst in more than 20 years.

The worst devastation was in the town of Reghaia, just east of Algiers, where a seven-storey block of 78 apartments collapsed, and more than 350 people were feared to have died.

Hospitals in many towns found it almost impossible to cope. In some areas, bodies had to be piled up outside the hospitals and patients were treated in the open air.

In Algiers around 60 buildings were destroyed, among them the training centre for the national sporting elite.

"There's nothing left of the building. Over 200 dead were found last night and today more are being recovered," said a Reuters photographer on the scene.

In Rouiba, a relatively prosperous city some 30 kilometres from the eastern edge of Algiers, one building after another was reduced to rubble.

"I have never seen such a disaster in my life. Everything has collapsed," said Yazid Khelfaoui, whose mother was killed.

The rubble of his apartment block was all around him.

Algerian television showed dozens of bodies lined up under sheets and blankets, some clearly children.

"There were so many wounded, we couldn't count them," one harassed doctor said.